Introduction

I enjoy finding, using, and teaching others superior
technology. Unfortunately, people often think they use
"the best technology", but most of the time they do
not fully understand what makes one technology better than
another. The technology they usually use is 'what their
friends or co-workers are using', or what their
company/government forces them to use. The statement is
often made, "We use it because everyone else does (or has)."
Obviously, this is not an optimum choice based on
superiority of one technology over another based upon
rational evaluation.

Often a superior technology is kept out of the market because there
is little motivation for the existing manufacturers to bring an innovation
to market. A good example was the United States inventing theTransistor
in 1947, but neither General Electric, RCA, Motorola, nor any of the
other large American firms, saw a reason to commercialize this amazing
innovation. Basically the transistor did what the vacuum tube did, just
much smaller, cheaper (ultimately), faster, more reliably, and with
much greater energy economy. It took an organization (Sony)
outside the dominant (at the time) electronics industry to introduce
the innovation of the transistor 10 years later in the form of the World's
first pocket radio.

Sometimes technology is rushed to market too quickly and the market
(consumers) reject the innovation. For example, the picture telephone.
It was too expensive and most people did not want to pay extra for so
little value. Both these examples apply to nuclear energy. It was rushed
to market because of the amazing advance that occurred due to the Manhattan
Project. Imagine Ben Franklin discovering electricity and then 5 years
later we have vacuum tube radios (within the industrial capability of
the 1700s). This is what happened with nuclear energy; fission was discovered
in 1939 and by 1944 the first atomic bomb was exploded! This amazing,
yet tragic thust of a new technology because of military needs has tainted
nuclear energy ever since. Most people can not separate the military
from the commercial, nor do they fully understand the breadth of nuclear
technology. Most see it as humankind's most recent Frankenstein; a technology
beyond human control. This unfortunate perception is due to a lack of
understanding of nuclear technology by most people. These web pages
are my attempt to educate those interested in learning more about a
lesser known area of nuclear Technology: Fluid Fuel Reactors.

Here are some of my beliefs about
energy and nuclear technologies:

NUCLEAR:

Was too hastily advanced in order to make a weapon
(bomb) for war. Because of this rush, little consideration was
given to the overall system design until much of the
infrastructure was already in place, and thus hard to change. No
"systems" type analysis was done on the many possibilities open to
us. Many of the nuclear waste difficulties came from the military
nuclear byproducts, not the commercial nuclear industry. Nuclear
was also a virtual slave to military needs until very recently,
and by then the public's attitude had reversed. Nuclear is a broad
field, just as electronics is. Think of all the different
applications of electronics and you will begin to appreciate
nuclear's depth. Everything from medicine, to basic materials and
biological processes studies, to the obvious energy and weapons
use, are a few of nuclear's past and present uses. Space
propulsion is a real possibility in nuclear's future, as chemical
rockets do not have enough power for a trip to Mars and back.

There are over900
possible nuclear reactors! To put that in perspective, there
are just 3 different Internal Combustion engines that power our
entire transportation system; gasoline (Otto cycle), diesel
(Diesel cycle), and gas turbine ("Jet engine", Brayton cycle). We
(the USA) use just 2 primary nuclear reactors; Pressurized
Water Reactor (PWR) & Boiling
Water Reactor (BWR). Canada uses an
independently developed CANDU Reactor (CANadian
Deuterium Uranium Reactor - because the USA kept its
WW II nuclear secrets from Canada due to secrecy worries), which
is a pressure tube, heavy water reactor. Britain has some old gas
cooled reactors still running. France, Japan, and Russia continue
to play with nuclear fire; The Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor
(LMFBR). These type of reactors have very poor safety
records and availability. Many have suffered core melts (e.g.,
EBR-I & Fermi) and/or fires (e.g., Monju's recent fire). Of
interest is Argonne National Laboratory's Integral Fuel Reactor
(IFR), which uses Molten Salt Processing of the fuel (they call it
"Pyroprocessing" so as to avoid association with Molten Salt
Reactors [MSRs]). Unfortunately, the excellent
"Pyroprocessing" (Molten Salt processing) is coupled to a LMFBR
type reactor.

LWRs, or Light Water Reactors, e.g., the BWRs & PWRs that
constitute the 110 commercial nuclear reactors the USA has
operating to supply about 20% of the USA's electricity needs. They
are very flexible reactors, as demonstrated by the replacement of
the original core of America's first commercial reactor so it
could utilize all the nuclear resource ("breed" its own fuel) in
the "Light Water Breeder Reactor" (LWBR) experiment during the
late1970s. Alvin Radkowsky was Admiral Rickover's reactor core
designer, and he designed the LWBR's core too. Alvin
Radkowsky heads a company in Israel devoted to recoring
existing reactors so they can fully utilize their nuclear
resource.

Nuclear energy will continue to be pursued and will expand in
the future due to the following fact:

Nuclear energy gives over 1000000 times the energy
that you could get from burning any material. Nature gives us
few 'million to one' improvements, so why throw it away?

Nuclear wastes, if burned completely (to fission
products only), become less radioactive than the dirt they came
from in ~300 years of storage.

Nuclear wastes will be valuable in the future. Laugh if
you will, but natural gas was once considered a deadly menace to
oil drillers and was avoided or vented where ever possible. One of
the worst nuclear wastes is Strontium-90 (Sr-90), which
constitutes about 5% of the nuclear waste (fission products)
produced. Just ~0.5 kilograms (1 pound) of Strontium-90 gives
steady, predictable energy at a rate similar to burning ~1000
liters/year (250 gals/year) of gasoline. No control is needed
besides containing the strontium (chemically similar to calcium)
and its heat. Maybe we will use it in space where there is no
biosphere. Should the irrational fears over radiation
subside, we may find it useful to power deep ocean probes
(submarines).

The only way to get rid of plutonium is with neutrons.
The main source of neutrons is from a reactor, from where
plutonium came. Plutonium must go back into the reactors, if we
want to be rid of it. The situation reminds me on one of my
favorite stories, Tolkien's Trilogy, where Frodo has to throw
Sauron's evil ring back into the fires from which it came!

"Plutonium can only be destroyed by neutrons; burial only
hides it. Plutonium needs to be viewed differently than it is today,
perhaps best expressed by the statement; 'Plutonium should not be
considered a waste, nor a resource, but instead, an endowment'."

Solar energy is much more difficult than nuclear energy
due to huge economic obstacles. Also, as my friend Jack Pleasant
points out, it is primarily in the narrow band 35° above
& below the equator. Most of the energy demand is well beyond
that region. I lived in Germany, which is above the latitude of
most of the Continental USA, so I know how long solar energy can
be gone! Unless countries change completely, it is very unlikely
they will want to be completely dependent upon the countries
within the solar band for their energy needs. If wars are fought
over oil, what will happen when narrow geographies control solar
energy? Despite this, I believe solar can and should be exploited.
One of the easiest and most cost effective, yet still rarely done,
is using solar for domestic heating ("passive solar" heat &
"active" hot water heaters). Interestingly, solar may be very good
for meeting the "Peak Electrical Loads" (usually from noon to
dinner time). Thus, a possible scenario would be for nuclear to
provide most of the base load (the electricity demand that is
constant, day and night, day after day) and solar and other
alternative energy forms (e.g., wind) provide much of the peaking
load, with gas turbines providing backup.

Global Climate Change is real! It is caused mainly by
too much burning of fossil fuels. Ironically, burning some fossil
fuels might actually be good for the earth as these materials are
those that the earth's recycling mechanism missed. However, we are
burning (consuming) fossil fuels and changing the atmosphere at an
unprecedented rate. To think it can continue without any
consequences is pure stupidity. One way to reduce CO2
and NOx emissions is to displace as much fossil
generating electricity with that from nuclear power plants. The
sooner we start, the less drastic the change we have to make. To
argue against this needed change is to insure our future change
will be a virtual panic.

To those who believe God will fix the messes we
make, please ask yourself, "If I made (make) a mess at my home,
did (do) my parents always clean it up without complaint?" If
your answer is YES, then let us hope we are God's
spoilt children!

Radiation standards have become a fanatic's dream; they are
set well below any real danger. In fact, they are so strict that a
coal burning plant now releases 100 times the radiation of a
nuclear plant. Sound impossible? (Read Coal
Combustion .) No, it is an example of well intentioned
regulations becoming ever tighter just because the regulator
thinks it is what the public wants and because they can! To learn
more about radiation go to
myRadiation
Facts Page.

The real question about Molten Salt Reactors is not will
they be commercialized, but who and when will they do
it! If you have not heard about the MSR, do not worry; neither have
most nuclear engineers and scientists. If you think this is some sort
of 'Government Conspiracy' type information, please read on, or
better yet try to visit the last remaining Molten Salt Reactor, the
Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (near Knoxville) in
building number 7503. The MSRE has been designated "an American
Nuclear Society (ANS) Historic Landmark Site" and is also a short
distance (~5 kilometers; ~3 miles) from the other ANS Historic Site,
the "Graphite Reactor". Unfortunately, the MSRE site is not open to
the public, but Oak Ridge's Museum of Energy is supposed to
have obtained the "worlds largest machined piece of beryllium" which
was to have been half of the core of the Molten Salt version of the
Aircraft Nuclear Reactor; the "Fireball". Intrigued, but confused and
doubtful? Good! Now is the time to begin your personal
"Molten Salt
Adventure"; read on & learn!

Here are my worries, and
thus the main reason I have created these web pages.

I believe,

a Western country, most likely the USA, will be the victim of
a Clandestine
Nuclear Weapon. Little is being done to prevent
this, despite government statements to the contrary. Excess
weapons plutonium must be destroyed in nuclear reactors.

Global Climate Change is real and will have a greater
and greater impact upon our lives.

ignorance (or stupidity) has become a virtue instead of
the vice it should be. No choice is perfect, so we must use our
knowledge (as imperfect as it may be) to make a good, rational
choice.

The "Eclectic Thread" of this page is; there is superior
technology (Nuclear, if you do not know by now!) that is not being
fully utilized and because it is not being fully utilized, there are
more problems than would otherwise be the case.

Some of my Eclectic
Interests, and Solutions to the Above Problems, are:

The molten salt reactor (MSR) option for burning fissile
fuel from dismantled weapons is examined. It is concluded that
MSRS are potentially suitable for beneficial utilization of the
dismantled fuel. The MSRs have the flexibility to utilize any
fissile fuel in continuous operation with no special
modifications, as demonstrated in the Molten Salt Reactor
Experiment, while maintaining their economy, The MSRS further
require a minimum of special fuel preparation and can tolerate
denaturing and dilution of the fuel. Fuel Shipments can be
arbitrarily small, which may reduce the risk of diversion. The
MSRS have inherent safety features that make them acceptable
and attractive. They can burn a fuel type completely and
convert it to other fuels. The MSRs also have the potential for
burning the actinides and delivering the waste in an optimal
form, thus contributing to the solution of one of the major
remaining problems for deployment of nuclear power.

A brief history of the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR), but the main
focus is proliferation of nuclear materials and how the MSR can
reduce, if not eliminate, the proliferation possibility via its
use of the Thorium Fuel Cycle, as opposed to the current
Uranium-Plutonium Fuel Cycle. The destruction of the excess
Weapons Fissile Material (Highly Enriched Uranium, HEU, &
Bomb-Grade Plutonium) by emplacement in a MSR and converting the
excess material's neutrons into proliferation resistant
Uranium-233/232 (233U & 232U) is
examined. Various postulated proliferation means are discussed and
where possible, quantitatively shown not to be possible with MSRs.
A good source of references for the interested student of
MSRs.

Invented by "... three American physicists at the Bell
Telephone Laboratories, John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and
William B. Shockley" in 1947. They allowed the electronics
industry to advance due to "their small size, low heat
generation, high reliability, and relatively small power
requirements".

Morita Akio, one of the founders of theSony
corporation, which "In 1957 Sony introduced the world's first
pocket-sized, all-transistor radio. In 1960 Sony introduced an
8-inch (20-centimetre) transistorized television set, creating
a new market for television". (Back)